La Mear v. Wells, 20843.

• Decision Date: 07 January 1930
• Docket Number: No. 20843.,20843.
• Parties: LA MEAR v. WELLS.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

22 S.W.2d 876

LA MEAR v. WELLS.

No. 20843.

St. Louis Court of Appeals. Missouri.

January 7, 1930.

Appeal from St. Louis Circuit Court; John W. Calhoun, Judge.

"Not to be officially published."

Action by H. La Mear against Rolla Wells, receiver of the United Railways Company of St. Louis. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Reversed and remanded.

T. E. Francis and O. P. Owen, both of St. Louis, for appellant.

Thos. J. Rowe, Jr., and Henry Rowe, both of St. Louis, for respondent.

NIPPER, J.

This is an action for damages for personal injuries sustained by plaintiff, a married woman, when she attempted to alight from one of defendant's street cars at Broadway and Osage streets in the city of St. Louis. Plaintiff recovered judgment for $500, and defendant has appealed.

The petition alleged that defendant violated his duty and failed to safely carry plaintiff to her destination, and so carelessly and negligently conducted himself in the premises that he failed to provide a safe step from his car, and failed to keep slippery mud off the step, and caused, suffered, and permitted said step to remain slippery and dangerous, so that plaintiff, without any fault on her part, in alighting from said car, was thrown therefrom by reason of said unsafe step and the mud and slop collected thereon. The answer was a general denial.

It appears that plaintiff and her husband had boarded this particular street car at Broadway and Elwood streets, and had ridden the same for about 32 blocks. When the car stopped, her husband alighted first, after which she attempted to get off, and fell. She says she noticed the step was muddy and sloppy. There was snow on the ground, and snow, slop, and mud on the step. When she stepped upon this step, she fell to the ground. Her husband picked her up and helped her to her home, about 2½ blocks away. Her left knee and ankle were injured, and she also suffered pains in her back and abdomen. She was then about five or six months pregnant. When she fell, she fell on her face and abdomen. She had a bruise on her left knee, and one a little below the knee and on the ankle. About four months after this time, the child was born dead. When this child was born, it was a perfect child, fully developed, and showed no signs of decay.

Dr. Bader, the physician who attended plaintiff for her injuries, and also attended her at childbirth, said that it appeared to him, when he first treated plaintiff, that she was about five months pregnant. He took the baby from plaintiff with instruments, and it was born dead. He testified that the only way or manner by which he could understand that this injury would have anything to do with the death of the child was that it might possibly have produced a maldevelopment, and in that way produced a stillborn. He also testified that this was purely a matter of conjecture; that he know of no precedent whereby the injury which plaintiff received could have produced the condition that existed here, and the child be perfectly developed and stillborn four or five months after the injury. Another doctor testified for the defendant that such a thing would have been impossible.

This statement of facts would indicate...